Introduction

Hello and welcome! In this guide, I’m going to explain my preferred PvE builds for both Anointed Champion and Divine Oracle clerics. It includes powers, feats, stats, gear, boons, companions – pretty much everything you’ll need to do well in a group setting. I include tips for soloing, but this guide is centered around group content, which is the majority of what you’ll be running eventually!

Now, if you’re here, you’re one of three kinds of people – you’re either new to playing a cleric, new to the game, or looking for a different way to play your pre-existing cleric. I’ll do my best to explain everything so that even someone new to the game can understand. If you are new to clerics, I recommend reading the Mechanics tab before delving in to the powers and feats. If there’s any confusion (or incorrect information), feel free to leave a comment! Alternatively, you can contact me in game by sending a mail or message to @silverrrrrrr.

AC clerics are generally recognized as the most “healy” of the two paragons, but they are primarily very strong buffers. As of Mod 15, DO clerics are more offensively oriented, and have less group buffs. AC clerics are sought after the most, but they require much higher stats due to powershare. DO still has some party benefit, but not nearly as much as before, so they won’t be asked for as much. But since you have two loadouts, you can have one of each!

Please note – My cleric is always in-progress, but I will always update this guide with any notable changes I make.

If my guide helped you, remember to click the heart and show some love!

Updated January 8, 2019

+ added companion enchantments that I accidentally deleted

Upcoming changes:
visual updates to mount page
mod 15 AC guide video

Anything related to Module 15 is in red bolded text.

Previews

Gear

Please remember that this is endgame gear, and is definitely not something you should immediately shoot for when making a cleric/reaching level 70. There are so many other options for gear, companions, etc that are just fine and can take you through any content. Please don’t be discouraged looking at the prices/time it takes to earn these things. Everyone starts out with nothing.

Stats (note – these are my stats with bondings + blessings of battle only, no party buffs)

p.s. I know I have an excessive amount of armor penetration, on my other loadout I actually have over 15,000. You won’t get this much unless all your enchantments are maxed on your companion, and even then you could always swap them for something else. I chose not to because I’m satisfied with where my stats are.

Mechanics – An Overview of Clerics

First thing’s first, what is a devoted cleric?

A devoted cleric is a support class. They can protect allies from harm, heal their wounds, and enhance their overall damage and defenses versus enemies. Clerics are in high demand – any average dungeon run requires at least one of them, so you won’t have an issue finding groups. Towards endgame, some people like to go with two clerics, one buffing and one healing. These clerics have to coordinate their powers, so communication is a big deal.

Cleric is a really powerful class. It can do pretty much anything you want it to, if built correctly. They can do decent DPS, but this guide doesn’t cover that.

So, how does a cleric work?

There are two main components that you need to understand in order to be a successful cleric.

Divinity

Once you reach level 10, you’ll notice a translucent bar in the middle-left of the screen. This is your divinity charge meter. Pressing tab puts you in Divinity Mode, which gives your powers special effects. Every power does something different, so read up on them! Generally, powers used in Divinity Mode cast more quickly, but can have lessened/changed effects. Each time you use a power in Divine mode, you will gain one stack of Empowered (max of 3 stacks). These will show as blue orbs around your character. Using at-will powers will refill your divinity meter. Entering divine mode also completely changes your at-wills, but you likely won’t use these changed versions at all.

Two stacks of Empowered – this means I have used a power in Divine mode (tab) two times.

Empowerment

Empowerment is the next step after Divinity. Once you have at least 1 stack of Empowered, you can use an encounter to gain even more bonus effects! Empowered powers are very strong versions of the normal encounter powers, and they usually give a large bonus to healing, damage, or buff. The next encounter you use in normal mode after acquiring at least 1 stack of Empowered will be considered “empowered”. The bonuses Empowered encounters give scale based on the number of stacks of Empowered you currently have (1-3). So, having more stacks is better. It’s always a good idea to fully empower an encounter if you want to use it in empowered mode.

Did I say “empowered” enough in that paragraph?

An example of the different effects of a power in normal, divine, and empowered modes.

If you were previously a DPS or tank class, adjusting to a cleric can be a bit challenging at first. But, I fell into it easily once I learned about channel divinity and empowering encounters. After that, it was just the challenge of going from melee -> ranged.

Solo Strategy

When you’re soloing content, you don’t really have to consider things such as buffing or healing. Your primary focus is killing whatever monsters are in front of you, and so for soloing I always recommend Divine Oracle. This guide is mainly centered around group content, but I will share a few changes I make when I’m fighting alone. Powers are covered more in-depth in the Powers tab.

Stronghold boons – switch to armor penetration instead of power (if you aren’t at 85/100%).

At-wills – Lance of Faith, Brand of the Sun or Astral Seal (situational, usually BoTS for single target and Astral Seal for multi target)

Class features – Terrifying Insight, Holy Fervor

Rotation – Chains, [divinity] divine glow, [divinity] chains, [divinity] chains, [empowered] daunting light or chains, [normal] divine glow
If the fight will continue after that, I use a daily (hammer of fate for single target, flame strike for multiple targets)

Group Strategy

As you increase your item level and skill, playing in groups will require increasingly more buffing and less direct healing. For bosses, you usually want to position yourself opposite of the tank, next to the other DPS. For other mobs, I tend to still be opposite the tank, but standing back slightly from the dps to avoid getting hit. Each boss/dungeon offers different challenges, and each group can have a different strategy. Do whatever works for you! Specific powers for group content are already covered in the powers tabs, however I will leave a rotation here.

Your rotations may be different, and you might even use different powers. That’s fine! I’m just sharing what works for me, you may find something else that works for you as you experiment with what’s available.

Mod 15: Another attempt was made to get rid of the 2 cleric meta, this time by making the divine oracle paragon an offensively oriented dps paragon with less party buffs. DO clerics will be less desired in parties, though they do still have some buff potential, just not nearly as much as before.

Race

In good parties, race won’t make much of a difference (maybe 1% effectiveness difference). Play what you like!

Notes:

Sun Elf

+2 INT & +2 CHA/DEX: The bonus Intelligence will recharge your powers faster, always a plus. Toss the second 2 points into Charisma for even more recharge speed and Action Point gain!
2% higher Action Point gain: Yes please! The faster you can use your dailies, the more you can protect and buff your allies.

Dragonborn

+2 to any 2 ability scores: Wisdom and Charisma!
+3% Power and Critical Strike: Power is everything, and Crit helps too.
+5% Incoming Healing: The heals you cast on yourself will be 5% more effective. You’ll be throwing out lots of heals already, so this won’t make a noticeable difference.

Ability Scores

As a cleric, your primary ability score is Wisdom – this increases your healing and damage. So, naturally, you’ll want as much Wisdom as you can get. Your secondary ability scores are Charisma and Strength. You’re going to want to reroll your scores until you get the highest Wisdom possible (should be around 20).

For both Anointed Champion and Divine Oracle, you’ll want to put all of your points into Wisdom and Charisma. Charisma increases your recharge speed and action point gain. You may end up with slightly different numbers than me, depending on your race and how high you roll them during character creation.

Anointed Champion Feats

I actually have two variations of AC feats, on two separate loadouts. There’s really only one key difference between the two – one is pure buffing, and the other has more healing capabilities with Gift of Faith. It’s up to you which one you choose; I tend to use the first one most of the time where it’s vital to have the most buffs possible (I run a lot of endgame dungeons), and the second one occasionally when I’m running with low to mid-tier players who need more healing.

Full Buff AC – endgame ready

Heroic Feats

Toughness– 3/3 – Increases your maximum hit points by 3/6/9%.

This feat is good for any class, really – more hit points = you die less, and more damage from Aura of Courage (paladin)!

This will mainly just be divine glow, but the more action points, the better.

Domain Synergy – 5/5 – Gain 1/2/3/4/5% more Recovery.

More recovery means you can use your powers more often!

Repurpose Soul – 3/3 – When one of your spells crits, it disperses a small area heal worth 15% of the spell’s effect.

This feat gets better the more crit you have.

Bountiful Fortune – 5/5 – Gain 4/8/12/16/20% more divine power.

You’ll be able to fill your divinity a bit faster, which is important for spamming empowered stuff. (Percentages buffed in mod 15)

** Move 1-2 points from bountiful into cleanse if you notice the damage over time is killing your group (Tomb of the Nine Gods, Fangbreaker Island). However, this may annoy guardian fighter DPS.

Virtuous

Lasting Wishes – 5/5 – You heal for 2/4/6/8/10% more.

Slight compensation for your lack of other healing bonuses from the Faithful tree. Otherwise, it’s just a placeholder so you can reach battle fervor; either of the feats in this column would do, really.

Righteous

Ancient Warding – 5/5 – When the Anointed Army buff ends, the holder is healed for .6/1.2/1.8/2.4/3% of their max hit points, and gains 1/2/3/4/5% of their total action points.

This is a very important buff. The faster you can get dailies out, the faster you can heal, grant CC immunity, and give away free action points like candy! This is why recovery is important.

Weapons of Light – 5/5 – Allies within 30′ have their power increased by 2/4/6/8/10% of your power.

An amazing buff, all clerics should have this feat regardless of paragon path, even though it doesn’t stack anymore. A few thousand free power just by sitting next to a DC!

Bear Your Sins – 5/5 – Foes who are under the effect of one of your damage over time effects take 2/4/6/8/10% more damage from all sources.

This feat becomes very important once you unlock the power Break the Spirit – this makes that power an even stronger debuff!

Condemning Gaze – 5/5 – Your damaging encounter powers apply a stack of Condemned to affected targets for 30 seconds. If a foe reaches 5 stacks of Condemned they take 3/6/9/12/15% more damage from all sources for 15 seconds and will not gain new stacks of Condemned until this effect expires.

Tied for the second most important feat – this is a strong debuff that is mostly used on tougher enemies, like bosses. You can apply the 5 stacks pretty quickly!

Avatar of the Divine – 1/1 – The first power you use after entering combat grants you Avatar for 20 seconds, and you also gain this effect every 45 seconds you are in combat. Increases your damage dealt by 50%, divinity generation by 25%, and cooldown speed by 25%. Casting encounters will reduce the cooldown of avatar by 1.5 seconds for every stack of empowered consumed.

This was reworked in mod 15, and it’s much much nicer now.

AC Heals + Moderate Buffs (legacy loadout)

I don’t have this loadout on my character anymore, but I’m keeping it here for newer clerics to try out and experiment with.

Righteous

Ancient Warding – 5/5 – When the Anointed Army buff ends, the holder is healed for .6/1.2/1.8/2.4/3% of their max hit points, and gains 1/2/3/4/5% of their total action points.

This is a very important buff. The faster you can get dailies out, the faster you can heal, block CC, and give away free action points like candy! This is why recovery is important.

Weapons of Light – 5/5 – Allies within 30′ have their power increased by 2/4/6/8/10% of your power.

An amazing buff, all clerics should have this feat regardless of paragon path, even though it doesn’t stack anymore. A few thousand free power just by sitting next to a DC!

Divine Oracle Feats

As of mod 15, Divine Oracle was changed into an offensively oriented pseudo-dps paragon, so this build is for DPSing. I will still include my old build, because DO clerics still have a small amount of party buff potential, and lower item level clerics can still use that.

This bonus was doubled in mod 15, and it’s a flat buff that shows on your character sheet. It’s very easy to have way too much armor penetration, but this opens up opportunities for more crit.

Condemning Gaze – 5/5 – Your damaging encounter powers apply a stack of Condemned to affected targets for 30 seconds. If a foe reaches 5 stacks of Condemned they take 3/6/9/12/15% more damage from all sources for 15 seconds and will not gain new stacks of Condemned until this effect expires.

Tied for the second most important feat – this is a strong debuff that is mostly used on tougher enemies, like bosses. You can apply the 5 stacks pretty quickly!

Fire of the Gods – 5/5 – When you critically strike a foe they are set ablaze, taking 20/40/60/80/100% of your weapon damage every second for 15 seconds. This effect does not stack.

This damage scales with buffs, so it’s better than it seems! In my solo testing, I was doing ~19,500-26,000 damage every second. That’s a total of ~293,000-390,000 bonus damage, assuming the enemy lives for the full duration of the effect (think bosses). With group buffs, these numbers could be much higher.

Avatar of the Divine – 1/1 – The first power you use after entering combat grants you Avatar for 20 seconds, and you also gain this effect every 45 seconds you are in combat. Increases your damage dealt by 50%, divinity generation by 25%, and cooldown speed by 25%. Casting encounters will reduce the cooldown of avatar by 1.5 seconds for every stack of empowered consumed.

Power of the Sun– 5/5 – Brand of the Sun reduces the target’s damage output and their chance to crit by 1/2/3/4/5%.

One of the most important feats in this build. Grants a strong debuff to protect your allies.

Weapons of Light – 5/5 – Allies within 30′ have their Power increased by 2/4/6/8/10% of your Power.

Second most important feat here – powershare! I still think this is nice to have, even though it doesn’t stack with 2 clerics anymore.

Bear Your Sins – 5/5 – Foes who are under the effect of one of your damage over time effects take 2/4/6/8/10% more damage from all sources.

This feat becomes very important once you unlock the power Break the Spirit – this makes that power an even stronger debuff!

Condemning Gaze – 5/5 – Your damaging encounter powers apply a stack of Condemned to affected targets for 30 seconds. If a foe reaches 5 stacks of Condemned they take 3/6/9/12/15% more damage from all sources for 15 seconds and will not gain new stacks of Condemned until this effect expires.

Tied for the second most important feat – this is a strong debuff that is mostly used on tougher enemies, like bosses. You can apply the 5 stacks pretty quickly!

Avatar of the Divine – 1/1 – The first power you use after entering combat grants you Avatar for 20 seconds, and you also gain this effect every 45 seconds you are in combat. Increases your damage dealt by 50%, divinity generation by 25%, and cooldown speed by 25%. Casting encounters will reduce the cooldown of avatar by 1.5 seconds for every stack of empowered consumed.

This was reworked in mod 15, and it’s much much nicer now.

Anointed Champion Powers

As an AC cleric, you won’t always be able to follow a strict power rotation, but even with a full buff loadout, the heals you provide will be adequate.

If you’re starting out and doing dungeons with a full group that are a similar item level as you, you’ll run into some “emergency” situations where a strict rotation won’t be possible – people are dying, the mobs are hitting you, you’re trying to revive an ally, ahh!! It can be a bit stressful. It’s times like those when you just shoot out as many healing/protective spells as you can, as fast as you can, and hope nobody dies. This doesn’t happen in endgame – most of the time you’re either full health or dead.

At-Will Powers

Blessing of Battle – One of the most important buffing powers an AC cleric has, but I personally only see a place for it in endgame content. This power increases the target’s power by 15% of your power. Paired with the weapons of light feat, that target will have 25% of your power! I’ve found it a bit tough to work into my rotation, but I’m working on it. This power also temporarily increases your allies’ defenses, as well.

Astral Seal – This is a very important and useful healing spell. It marks your target, and whenever an ally hits that target, they get healed. I like to call it “enhanced lifesteal.” I always use this power to charge up my divine power. 3 hits after empowering a spell, and you’re back to full divinity again!

If you’re soloing, Astral Seal can save your butt, too. Instead of running away, you can just stab the mobs harder to survive! It makes so much sense!

Encounter Powers

My encounter powers change depending on the situation, but here are the ones I use the most.

Divine Glow – One of my personal favorites, both for its healing/damage/buff combo, visual effect, and for annoying people while off-duty! This is a great power to use, whether you are AC or DO. Using Divine Glow (DG) in divine mode buffs your allies’ damage by 5%, decreases foes’ damage by 5%, heals allies, and does a mediocre amount of damage at the same time. It’s like a swiss army knife, so many functions! Using the power normally decreases foes’ damage resistance by 10%, and increases allies’ damage resistance by 10%. Oh, and it also heals, does damage, and grants a heal over time! Whew! This power does so much stuff.
tl;dr – Always use this power. a-l-w-a-y-s

Mod 15: Forgemaster’s Flame no longer grants the party a damage buff, so I have removed it from this list.

Break the Spirit – If you are using this, empower it! You’ll grant your party members 21% more damage. This power has a really cool visual effect, too.

Exaltation– While this is a really nice buff, it can be tricky because it’s targeted. It applies to the person you’re targeting, and during fights when everyone’s running around, it can be hard to get it on the right person. There is a keybind that allows you to lock the power to a specific target (you would want to always target the main dps). I use this power all the time in endgame content. This power does not stack if there happens to be 2 clerics in your group using it, so each one would have to bind a different person.

Keybind (copy this into your chat): /bind CTRL “+Hardtargetlock $$ target “nameWithoutHandle” $$ +PowerTrayExec 3″
Now every time you press CTRL, the power in your 3rd powertray slot will be used (this is the E button on PC). 2 is Q and 4 is R. It can be a tad tricky to get used to, but you adjust quickly. To unbind the key, simply use /unbind CTRL. You’ll want to do this after you stop running with the person you’ve targeted. Note that you do have to be able to see the targeted person, and they still have to be in range. No super x-ray vision powers with the keybinds, sorry!

Note: If you’re soloing, try using Chains of Blazing Light, Divine Glow, and Daunting Light! This will give you more dps, so you don’t have to stand there for 3 hours and attempt to heal a batiri to death.

Warding Flare – I hear you – you’re giong “huh?” It doesn’t seem like much at first, but it applies a constantly regenerating shield to everyone in its radius for 8 seconds at max rank. Since it regenerates, it’s really good for helping groups stay alive (for instance, ones with enough dps, but a mediocre tank that loses aggro to the dps). Don’t bash it before you try it 😉

Bastion of Health – If powers were items from a first aid kit, Bastion of Health would be that super extra-large bandaid that you were always jealous of as a kid, but also hoped you never had to use, at the same time. Bastion is capable of producing insane healing. Its only downfall is it only heals within a smallish area, but you can choose where to direct the spell. If your allies are mexican jumping beans, it can make healing them with this spell a challenge.
tl;dr – Bastion is the strongest heal in your arsenal. It’s often the difference between life and death!

Astral Shield – Astral Shield has been changed a lot, but it’s still an okay power to use in normal or divine mode. I usually replace it with one of the following 2 powers if the group can reasonably survive. This power is especially useful in bosses such as Orcus (Castle Never) and WIthers (Tomb of the Nine Gods). At rank 4, AS increases allies’ damage resistance by 40%! That’s higher than my last test score!

Daily Powers

For dailies, in most groups you’ll want to churn out as many Anointed Armies as you are capable of producing. In the event that you aren’t spawning armies out of your butthole, Hallowed Ground is a nice buff.

Anointed Army – These glowing orbs of protection will shield your allies 4 times, up to 20% of their maximum health. And if you have the Ancient Warding feat, everyone will gain 5% of their total action points when AA ends! Action points for everyone! This power is great to use if you’re waiting on encounters to cooldown, trying to prevent everyone from dying all at once, or really… it’s great to use all the time. There isn’t a single place where AA wouldn’t be useful. Unless, of course, you’re trying to die..

Hallowed Ground – A solid alternative daily, HG buffs your allies damage and defenses by 35% each at tier 4, and also makes a pretty gold circle on the floor. You also look really awesome and important while casting this spell. HG does have an ICD (internal cooldown), meaning that even if you regenerate all of your action points, you can only use it once every 20 seconds. This is still plenty of time for you to keep 100% uptime if you’re running Hastening Light!

Divine Armor – Divine Armor gives everyone a lot of temporary hit points (80% at tier 4). While this sounds good, it can be depleted a lot faster than Anointed Army, and doesn’t provide any buffs like Hallowed Ground does. I only use this one occasionally, in situations where there are a lot of small hits that would eat up the AA orbs, or when I’m messing around (cough trying to tank).

Class Features

Generally, my class features stay the same, but there are occasions when I switch one out.

Holy Fervor – Lots and lots of action points! I keep this class feature on all the time, regardless of the situation. More action points = more protection = less dying = even more action points!

Hastening Light – Reduces all allies’ cooldowns every time you use a daily power, which means more damage and more buffs. Do you see why action points and recovery are important yet?

Anointed Armor – This is often overlooked, but Anointed Armor is a strong defense buff for yourself. +16 Armor Class and +8% deflect chance. I really only use this when I’m messing around or pvping, but it can be really useful in a pinch.

My Powers Screen –

Divine Oracle Powers

As a DO, you’re either gonna be empowering your allies as much as possible, or churning out as much DPS as you can. Usually, Divine Oracles don’t heal as much, although their supplemental healing (if present) can outperform a mediocre full-healing AC cleric.

At-Will Powers

Lance of Faith – This power does the most damage out of all the cleric at-wills. However, it doesn’t have a special buff/debuff like the other at-wills.

Brand of the Sun – A strong debuff, reduces your target’s damage and critical chance when paired with the Power of the Sun feat. It’s not that great by itself, just a damage over time. I use this power to charge up my divinity. If you time it right, you can mitigate the damage of a boss’s first hit while keeping aggro off of yourself. This can help your tank get adjusted more easily.

Astral Seal – I don’t use Astral Seal often on my DO, normally only when I’m soloing or there isn’t sufficient healing in the party. It marks your target, and whenever an ally hits that target, they get healed. I like to call it “enhanced lifesteal.”

In groups, I stick with Lance of Faith and Brand of the Sun.

Encounter Powers

Daunting Light – The best DPS power that clerics have. I only wish the radius were a bit bigger. If you fully empower it, it can easily do over a million damage when you’re soloing.

Divine Glow – One of my personal favorites, both for its healing/damage/buff combo, visual effect, and for annoying people while off-duty! This is a great power to use, whether you are AC or DO. Using Divine Glow (DG) in divine mode buffs your allies’ damage by 5%, decreases foes’ damage by 5%, heals allies, and does a mediocre amount of damage at the same time. It’s like a swiss army knife, so many functions! Using the power normally decreases foes’ damage resistance by 10%, and increases allies’ damage resistance by 10%. Oh, and it also heals, does damage, and grants a heal over time! Whew! This power does so much stuff.tl;dr – Always use this power. a-l-w-a-y-s

Forgemaster’s Flame – I think for the 3rd encounter I would stick with forgemaster’s when dpsing. It casts quickly and does decent damage. Empowering this grants your party 20% damage resistance, though you’ll want to empower daunting light instead.

Chains of Blazing Light – I use this for “trash mobs” and/or in place of Prophecy of Doom when not in a boss room. It can do a lot of DPS quickly in divinity mode, and empowering this means instant death for a lot of mobs. This power is great for soloing.

Break the Spirit – If I’m buffing, I’m using this power unless requested not to. Why? As a DO, I have the “Bear Your Sins” feat that increases the damage the target takes by 10%. Empowering this will grant your party members 21% more damage. Always empower this! This power has a really cool visual effect, too.

Prophecy of Doom – Useful in bosses, this power is a very nice debuff. It lowers your target’s damage resistance by 10% normally, and up to 20% when empowered (though you usually won’t be empowering this). It does have a longer cast time than most DC powers, comparable to Bastion of Health. So you have to be careful that you aren’t standing in a red zone when you cast it!

Note: For soloing, also try Daunting Light and Divine Glow.

In groups with a lot of debuffs, it’s actually more beneficial to use Daunting Lightinstead of Prophecy of Doom (I do this in endgame groups). Holding CTRL while casting can help you direct it onto the enemies, the only downside of that is that CTRL also lets you target allies with it.

Daily Powers

Hallowed Ground – This will be your main daily when you’re buffing. HG buffs your allies damage and defenses by 35% each at tier 4, and also makes a pretty gold circle on the floor. You also look really awesome and important while casting this spell. HG does have an ICD (internal cooldown), meaning that even if you regenerate all of your action points, you can only use it once every 20 seconds. This is still plenty of time for you to keep 100% uptime if you (or another dc) are running Hastening Light!

Hammer of Fate – I don’t use this very much, but it can do some solid dps to a single target. If you kill the target with this power, you gain lots of action points back! You are resistant to crowd control effects and damage when casting, too! Oh, and you also look super awesome. (The best part)

Flame Strike – A good damage daily, Flame Strike is an AoE, meaning it focuses on many targets at once. This power does really nice DPS too. It’s hard to use this power on enemies that run around a lot, so try snatching them with Chains first.

Note: Any of the above are good for soloing, though you’ll likely use Hammer and Flame Strike more.

Class Features

Holy Fervor – Lots and lots of action points! I keep this class feature on all the time, regardless of the situation. More action points = more protection = less dying = even more action points!

Hastening Light – If you have solid action point gain, you might want to slot this instead. It’ll speed up your allies’ recharge speed. Having two clerics using this is nuts.

My Powers Screen –

Cleric Stats

The stats you’re going to want to prioritize as a cleric are Power, Recovery, and Critical Strike (in that order). If you’re playing DPS, you’ll also want to prioritize armor penetration until you reach 100% resistance ignored*.

*not “new” in mod 15, but a new stat that you need to focus on that’s caused by the mod 15 changes, so I bolded it.

Power– The backbone of being a cleric. The strength of your healing, buffing, and damage all comes from this stat. You’ll want as much of it as possible, since there is no cap.

Recovery– Clerics shoot out powers constantly! There isn’t much time to sit around waiting for your powers to recharge when your allies are dying. A solid recovery number to shoot for is 18,000 – this will give you about +100% Recharge Speed Bonus and +100% Action Point Gain (assuming you are using Holy Fervor). Anything higher than that is subject to diminishing returns, but you will see results until about 30k or so.

Critical Strike – You’re going to want a critical chance as close to 100% as possible. My build doesn’t have that yet (sitting around 90% in my DO loadout), but that’s what I’m going to be working on next. Dealing more critical hits procs the Repurpose Soul feat, which grants more healing. It also means stronger heals and damage in general. My second AC loadout (full buff) only reaches maximum effectiveness with a high crit chance. I’ll get there one day ^^

Defense– Most people prioritize crit before defense, which is fine, because crit is very important. But, since a cleric isn’t really a DPS class, it is important to focus on survivability as well while also having a high crit chance. If you can’t stay alive, how are you going to keep your teammates alive? A lot of your encounter powers will boost your defenses, so it isn’t terribly important to have a high damage resistance, but it certainly helps! (Note that there is a cap of 80% DR – you likely won’t reach this number just from defense, but you will using buffs such as Astral Shield and Divine Glow)

Gear

(click the blue buttons for the new gear previews)

Ah, the really fun part. Before level 70, it really doesn’t matter what gear you wear. Pick up and equip whatever gear you find.

After level 70, you have a few options.

**Read this first**

As of mod 15, you can get IL 500-510 blue gear on the auction house for really cheap. It comes from the new profession system, which everyone is working on right now, and it’s relatively easy to craft. The gear pieces currently cost 3k-10k each, so if you’ve been doing your daily randoms while levelling, you should be able to gear up no problem.

Other options:

If you have a friend or a nice guild mate, ask them to take you through the intro quest to Barovia. That’ll give you a full set of Vistani (IL 460) gear, which you can use until you get gear from the Barovian hunts, or anything else you desire. It comes with rank 8 enchantments equipped in it, but most of them are the wrong types for DC.

Doing heroic encounters in various places or completing random queues will award you seals of the brave, which you can use to buy Primal IL 500 gear as well.

Shirt/Pants

You can buy the Adamantine +1 shirt and pants on the auction house for very cheap. They have decent stats, and these will last you until you can do the Merchant Prince’s Folly skirmish for the chultan shirt, and the Manycoins Bank Heist skirmish for those shirt/pants.

The Chultan Shirt from Merchant Prince’s Folly is still better because of the recovery (+150 recovery for each party member).

Mod 15: New shirt and pants that drop from the Manycoins Bank Heist are worth looking into. Makos’s Spare Travel Pants are the new best for clerics, sporting 1,500 bonus power for the first 10 seconds of combat. This means it will be included in the initial powershare!

Waist/Neck

When you first reach level 70, go ahead and buy the Gold Pendant from the auction house, it’s a decent starter piece.

I used the Amulet of Tiamat’s Demise for a long time, and honestly, you can do any content with it. It gives stats that are useful to me (power/defense/recovery). However, I switched to the Fanged Beaded Amulet (power primary stat) for AC, and Bronzewood Amulet (crit primary stat) for DO. For my waist, I now use the Beaded Sash (power primary stat).

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If you aren’t able to get the masterwork items, you can stick with the greater belt of wisdom + necklace of your choice until then. If you really want the higher item level, you could go with the Skull Lord waist and neck pieces, although the necklace has more defensive stats.

Ravenloft brings quite a few new artifact sets, but the only one I found noteworthy was the Dead set, which is a new neck/waist and the long-existing Thayan Book of the Dead artifact. The equip bonus provides a 5% increase in power for 10 seconds whenever you dodge/sprint/block.

Dead Set

Rings

There are lots of good options here. When you first reach level 70, I would suggest buying Gold Rings (IL 500) from the auction house, they’re only about 3k each. This gives power and recovery, and also two enchantment slots each.

Ring of the Goblin Slayer +5 (from the Clawgraze hunt in Chult) is also very good and worth keeping if you acquire one.

There are a ton of rings available in Omu, but the most notable one is the Ring of the Gravestriker +4/+5. This ring is amazing for clerics, and every other class for that matter. Any other rings with double offense slots, or primal rings, are perfectly fine to use.

I recently switched all of my rings to Masterwork III rings, because I never got lucky with a +5. They have two offense slots, 560 item level/570 if +1 (increased from 510 in mod 15), and slightly higher stats than primal rings. Remember that bonded power isn’t shared, so if you’re going to start upgrading your rings, change the ones on yourself first!

If you’re playing DPS, you’ll want to get a shadowstalker ring from Fane of the Night Serpent in Omu.

The Faithlord (Barovian) Raid helmet is the best choice, as it provides higher stats than exalted primal and a really nice equip bonus (+1500 critical strike while above 50% health). Another option is the Decaying Habit, which grants you a respectable 2,700 base power, plus up to an additional 2,100 base power depending how long you have been in combat. However, if you’re in combat for more than a minute, you will lose up to 3,000 power as time passes. It still amounts to slightly more base power than the Faithlord piece, but it doesn’t have any other useful stats. If you’re looking to max base power, go for Decaying.

Faithlord's Raid Aventail/Decaying Habit

Mod 15: The new Gallant armor (item level 600) is really disappointing overall, the equip bonuses aren’t that great. However, if you’re playing DO dps, the Gallant helmet is worth getting for the damage increase.

Chestpiece

The best thing to start out with is the Adamantine Surcoat +1 from the auction house. It currently costs about 13k, 510 item level.

The Faithlord (Barovian) chest piece is the best, it gives +1500 power while you are above 50% health. If you’re aiming to stack power, the piece called Knotted Garbs can be good too, it gives ~2,500 base power and 1500 additional power for the first 10 seconds of combat. Faithlord piece will be the most beneficial, but the Knotted Garbs can be used until you have enough seals.

Faithlord's Restoration Chasuble/Knotted Garbs

Mod 15: The Gallant armor is pretty disappointing, the equip bonus is pretty bad (no more +1500 power) and it only gives 300 more power. I’m sticking with the faithlord piece this mod.

Arms

Adamantine Armguards +1 from the auction house. (item level is currently bugged, showing as 410 instead of 510)

Other options – If you’re looking to max recovery, there are barovian hunt pieces that give ~1,600 recovery. If you aren’t doing Barovia first, you can aim for the Royalsilk Mosquetaires. They come from the Arachne hunt in Chult (they look very girly, so if you don’t like that you’ll have to find a transmute).

You can also look into Jawripper’s gloves or Survivor’s wraps for powersharing, but Barovian pieces offer much more power.

The Faithlord (Barovian) gloves are decent, boasting +1500 armor penetration while above 50% health. These could be helpful if you are lacking armor penetration.There are two pieces that have much higher base power than Faithlord – Donjon’s Gloves (IL 520) and Executioner’s Gloves (IL 540). If you are looking to maximize base power, Executioner’s is the best possible piece, followed by Donjon’s. They do sacrifice other stats, but it’s worth it.

Feet

Other options – I got Bonespurs from Spli-Ti in Chult, Primal boots from seals of the brave.

Barovian boots are the greatest. They provide a +1500 recovery bonus when you’re above 50% health, which should be most of the time. Wowzers

Another interesting piece is the Lycan Boots of the Pack. While they don’t have any flat base power, you get +1,500 power as long as your companion is within 50′ of you. They’re typically not that far away, so this piece is worth mentioning (this does now work with augments). However, it doesn’t offer as much as the Faithlord piece.

Faithlord's Raid Pigaches/Lycan Boots

Mod 15: Gallant boots aren’t impressive, stick with faithlord’s. If you’re playing dps, you’ll want to get some dps boots like Boots of the WIlled.

Weapons

The easiest weapon set to acquire when you first reach level 70 is the Vistani set, which comes in the gear package you get from completing the intro Barovia quest. You’ll probably want to use these until you can get Primal, Pioneer, or Feathered.

The best weapon set to use for a cleric is the Feathered masterwork weapons.They have the highest base damage and stats after the mod 15 update.Also, you’re able to Exalt these weapons, which is a new process that increases the item level, base damage, and stats even higher than before! These weapons are expensive, and I don’t have them yet.

In the meantime, I use the Primal weapon set. It’s easy to obtain just by earning seals from heroic encounters/random queues, and it has a great equip bonus. Each piece costs 750 seals of the brave.

Another option is the Pioneer set, obtainable from the Omu campaign store. This set is the best one to maximize your base power. I don’t use it because I never did the middle tree for Omu (I know, I’m lazy).

If you aren’t yet able to do new content, or if you don’t know anyone who can craft these weapons, you have a few other options.

You can use the Brightsilver (Masterwork II) weapon set, but I don’t recommend it anymore. This set has the same bonus as the Feathered MWIII weapons, but less stats and base damage. It’s slightly less expensive than the Feathered ones, but personally I think if you’re looking to spend AD on weapons, why get anything other than the best?

The Barovian set, the Sun weapons, must be restored similar to the River District weapons. They cap at item level 520, with the same stats as exalted primal/pilgrim/pioneer. The set bonus is okay. Masterwork III weapons are still better.

Artifacts

Any artifact with max power is good to use, the other stats are up to you.

Current artifacts

Other good options:

Sigil of the Devoted – Comes in handy in a pinch, and is very useful when you aren’t at the 100% recharge/ap gain goal. It’s also good if you’re using the Artificer’s Persuasion insignia bonus.

Empowered Illusionist’s Mask – Power, Recovery, and action point gain – 3 important stats for clerics! Very good to use if you managed to obtain it during the masquerade of liars event.

Symbol of Fire– Power, Recovery, and Defense. All 3 important stats! This should be on every cleric’s wishlist.

Symbol of Air – Power, Recovery, and Movement. The movement isn’t as important, but definitely helps.

Sigil of the Hunter – A good Power/Recovery artifact if you’re in need of recovery.

Tiamat’s Orb of Majesty – This artifact gives 5 stats opposed to the usual 3. Sounds awesome, but the downside is that the values for each stat aren’t as high. A good thing about this artifact is that it offers a lot of action point gain (+600 at mythic). If you’re using the tiamat neck and waist pieces, you’ll want to reserve a slot for this artifact for the set bonus.

Okay options:

Vanguard’s Banner – Debuffs enemies in the circle, lowering their damage resistance by 8%, and buffs your allies’ power and Lifesteal. If you’re at the point where you no longer need the DC sigil, using one of the banners as your primary artifact is a good choice.

Champion’s Banner – Enemies in the circle take 8% more damage, allies receive a bonus to incoming healing and recovery.

Personally, I would choose the Vanguard banner over the Champion’s. Extra power and and lifesteal is always helpful.

Thayan Book of the Dead – This one is more suited for DPS builds, but the extra critical strike and action point gain are good. It’s kinda expensive. If you manage to get one of these, you’d probably be better off saving it for a DPS alt of yours. This artifact is part of a new set in Mod 14 that may be decent if you can’t afford the beaded masterwork pieces.

Sigil of the Oathbound Paladin – Hit points, power, and AoE resist. All useful things, though another sigil artifact would probably be better. Its effect is useful though – creates a small circle that periodically heals anyone standing in it.

Enchantments

Enchantments are a lot easier to upgrade since mod 12b, you no longer need an additional enchant of the same rank in order to upgrade. Woohoo!

Offense Slots

You shouldn’t have to worry about putting recovery into your offense slots. You’ll gain more than enough recovery from other sources, so stack power here. (I haaaave the powaaaa!) I put Radiantsinto all of my gear offense slots.

If you’re playing damage, you can consider using some brutals or black ice to pick up some extra stats you may be missing, though it is possible to have 100% crit and 100% armor penetration with all radiants.

Another option is to use Cruelsin your offense slots – this gives both power and recovery, but lesser amounts. Since I already have enough recovery, I don’t use these on my gear. If you want to use a different artifact that has power/crit instead of power/recovery, slotting a couple cruels should make up the difference. It’s all about experimentation, really. Choose whatever works for you.

Defense Slots

Since you’re a cleric, you don’t really need lifesteal, and you’ll get plenty of hit points from boons, vip bonus, etc. I have black ice in all of my defense slots for the extra powershare with assassin’s covenant. Because of mount insignia bonuses, more defense = more power.

If you’re playing damage, and if you’re always running with a paladin who uses aura of courage, you might want to put Radiants in your defensive slots, too. The damage done by aura of courage is partially determined by how many hit points you have.

Utility Slots

Utility slots are basically the wildcard slot. There are a bunch of useful enchantments you can put here! Darkenchantments gives bonus movement, which is what I have in most of my slots. You can also use Fey Blessing, Quartermaster’s, or Dragon Hoard enchants if you want to earn some bonus refinement points instead. Radiants will give you bonus gold, and Azures bonus experience (this isn’t useful after level 70).

Weapon Enhancement

I prefer Dread as my weapon enhancement (replaced my Holy Avenger). It really shines if you have a high crit chance. It’s best for DO dc, but can be used by AC as well.

Frostand Plague Fire are the best debuff enchantments. Transcendent Frost applies a 30% slow, 25% recharge speed reduction, 11% damage dealt reduction, and 11% damage resistance reduction to the target for 10 seconds, once every 20 seconds. Plague Fire applies a 3.5% damage resistance reduction and a 1.5% damage dealt reduction for 3 seconds, stacking up to 3 times. 3 stacks causes your target to explode and deal poison damage to foes around it, and this effect can only happen once every 20 seconds. While Frost is a larger debuff on and off, plague fire is a smaller, more consistent one.

Feytouchedis also a good choice, I used that for awhile too. At Transcendent, it takes away 18% of your target’s damage, and converts it into 18% more damage for you. Better for DO than AC, but still decent overall.

If you’re looking to be as debuffy as possible, get a Frost enchantment.

Armor Enhancement

There are only a couple of good armor enhancements – Soulforged, Barkshield, and Negation. You eventually want to aim for a Negation, since it boosts recovery, but soulforged is perfectly fine. I actually prefer using Soulforged, since my recovery and defense are already very high, and it saves me from those “oops!” moments. You really don’t need any higher than a lesser soulforged, ever. I have run all endgame content with just a lesser soulforged (I have upgraded, though).

Soulforgedwill resurrect you if you enter a near-death state once every 75 seconds (at transcendent), and heal you for a small amount. This has saved my butt so many times.

Negationincreases your damage resistance, recovery, and incoming healing each time you are hit, up to 10 stacks. Negation is a good enchantment for pretty much any class. Soulforged can be used on any class too, but Negation has more benefits, especially if you are able to stay alive without much trouble.

Barkshieldwill negate a flat amount of damage based on how many charges your armor has (one is gained every 6-8 seconds depending on rank). I find this enhancement more useful for the dps in the party, but I suppose it could be used on a cleric as well. It doesn’t look as cool, though.

Eclipse enhancement gives a flat +25% deflection chance and 6 seconds of infinite stamina if you drop below 20% stamina (Unparalleled level, effect can only occur once every 60 seconds). A great enchantment, nothing wrong with using one if you have it, though I’d prefer it more for PvP than PvE.

Companions

Support companions are something that’s really lacking in Neverwinter. There are very few decent ones.

My Active Companions

Companion Enchantments

Ideally you’ll have 6 available offensive enchantment slots on your companion. Remember that power from bondings is not shared, so putting power in these slots is pointless. This is where you want to stack your crit, armor penetration, and recovery.

Good enchantments to put on your companion are ones like Savage, Ruthless, Wicked, or Azure. Be careful how much armor penetration you put on your companion, because at higher enchantment levels you can end up with way too much and need to do some tweaking.

Deepcrow Hatchling – A new companion in mod 15, the only thing good about it is its active bonus.

Earth Archon – 6% bonus damage while at full health. I’m either at full health or dead, so this works nicely.

Energon– Sort of the “wildcard” companion slot. I grabbed an energon because I didn’t have anything better to put here. 5% bonus HP isn’t bad, though, and it gives you more damage when running with a paladin using Aura of Courage. You could also use a Sprite/Ice Sprite/Flame Sprite (+2% Action Point Gain). I replaced my Sprite with the Energon.

Air Archon – +5% damage to enemies that aren’t at full health. More damage is always great, even as a DC.

Other companions:

Sellsword – similar to Con Artist, but with a power active bonus instead of crit. Sellsword also has an attack that applies a 10% debuff on the attacker. Conartist is easier to gear up (3 rings). If you’re going to use either the Sellsword or Con, make sure you have it upgraded to at least blue (rare) quality, and use it as your summoned companion.

Laughing Skull– Gives bonus power and recovery for the first 25 seconds of combat, and is relatively cheap on the auction house (~40k on PC right now). The skull’s bonus will most likely last through any trash mobs phase.

Rust Monster – The Rust Monster is one of the better support companions. It offers a 25% chance to inflict a 3% damage debuff on your attacker every time you’re hit. This stacks up to 3 times. This is a passive debuff, meaning you get a free 3-9% damage debuff just by getting slapped in the face repeatedly!

The Chultan Tiger is the best summoned companion for DPS characters. It is also very good for a DC! It gives a damage and movement bonus for the first 25 seconds of combat, and one of its attacks also applies a 10% stacking debuff on the enemy. So, it’s almost a combination of the Air Archon and Conartist/Sellsword companions. It is available either on the zen market or the auction house. This companion will be amazing to use as summoned, if you can afford it. However, it has two ring slots and a neck slot, so you’ll have to work on getting a good necklace (+4) for it.

Mounts & Insignia Bonuses

The actual mounts you have don’t matter – their bonuses do! Here is my active mount sheet. If I had a +4000 power mount, I would definitely use that for my AC build in place of my +2000 power/+2000 armor pen. This is a good place to get some bonus recovery, too. Previously I used the +2000 recovery bonus, but swapped it out since I had too much recovery. The trex eats things or puts a debuff on what it can’t eat, which is not only cool, but can be a literal lifesaver if timed correctly (looking at you, souls).

My stable:

Bonuses

Wanderer’s Fortune– Get bonus refinement just by killing stuff. Awesome! There is a daily cap, but you will get plenty of free refinement points this way. (Prior to 12b, this dropped refining stones such as Resonance, Thaumaturgic, etc. It now purely drops gemstones.)

Gladiator’s Guile– When your Stamina is over 75% full, move 15% faster. When it’s below 25%, gain 15% of your power as stamina gain. This is a great movement buff, you won’t be the slowpoke of the group anymore! It also helps in fights where you have to dodge a lot.

Protector’s Camaraderie – When your companion attacks, gain 3% of your power and defense for 10 seconds. Stacks up to 4 times. Awesome! Up to 12% more power and defense.

Assassin’s Covenant – One of the best insignia bonuses in the game. You lose 10% of your defense, deflection, and lifesteal, and gain a combination of the lost stats as power. At first it seems bad, since you’re losing so many defensive stats, but think about how much power you’re getting. For every 1000 defense, you will get 100 power.

Shapherd’s Devotion – When you use a daily power, your teammates’ defense, deflection, and movement are increased by 5% of your power for 10 seconds. This is a very strong buff, especially for clerics, who toss out dailies like they’re giving out halloween candy. It’s possible to keep this up 100% of the time. It’s based on buffed power, too, which is even better!

Artificer’s Persuasion – A really good bonus if you’re lacking in recovery/action point gain. Whenever you use an Artifact power, your Recovery, Movement, Action Point Gain, and Stamina Gain are increased by 10% of your Power for 15 seconds. I don’t use this one because I prefer to use the above five, but this one can significantly increase your recharge speed/ap gain.

This is just by myself – imagine how high it can get in a party!

Cavalry’s Warning– One of the other best insignia bonuses in the game, but only useful if you have a legendary mount. When you use a mount Combat Power, you gain an increase of 10% to your Power, Recovery, Armor Penetration, Critical Strike, Defense, Deflection, Regeneration, and Life Steal. Whew, that’s a lot of stats!

I would switch this one with Wanderer’s Fortune when needed.

Click here for a really awesome overview of all insignia bonuses, and the mounts that have them!

Insignias

Now that you know which bonuses to use, it’s time to figure out what insignias you should use! Choose insignias based on what stats you need. For the most part, mine are power, crit, and armor penetration. The stats from insignias are added directly to your stats. Therefore, they are really just stat enhancers. To maximize base power, you will of course want to go with dominance and brutality insignias.

Don’t worry if you don’t have purple, or even blue, insignias at first. Just focus on getting the bonuses, even if the insignias are green! You can upgrade them later.

Anointed Champion Boons

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You can click through the above gallery to see all of my boons, if you aren’t interested in reading any explanations.

Guild Stronghold

Power (can be swapped for armor penetration when soloing)

Defense – Less dying, more stabbing. And more power also. Can be swapped for Hit Points when running with an AoC Paladin, if desired.

Mount Speed Bonus – become speedy gonzales

Sharandar

Dark Fey Hunter – 400 power. Power is always good. Roar.

Fey Precision – 400 critical strike. This will help with your lack of crit that you probably have.

Elven Haste – +3% action point gain. Yes please!

Elven Tranquility – When hit, you have a chance to heal yourself for up to 20000 hit points. If you heal yourself automatically, you can focus more on healing everyone else!

Elvish Fury – When you kill something, gain 135 power for 45 seconds. This can stack up to 30 times. Not that useful as an AC, but more useful than any of the other boons.

Dread Ring

Reliquary Keeper’s Strength – 250 power and 250 movement. More power and more speedy gonzales!

Evoker’s Thirst – 400 lifesteal. A lot better than 400 regen, but still not particularly useful for this build.

Forbidden Piercing– +3% resistance ignored. This will help with the lack of armor penetration that you most definitely have.

Enraged Regrowth – Heal up to 20000 hit points over a few seconds when you’re slapped. When it’s over, gain 4000 defense. Yay, more defense, and more automatic healing!

Burning Guidance – Healing spells can burn enemies around the target for up to 2000 radiant damage. The most useful of the final boons. Free damage!

Icewind Dale

Weathering the Storm – 400 AoE resist. Any resistance to any type of damage is good.

Underdark

Drow Ambush Tactics – +10% combat advantage bonus. Not the most useful, but still works.

Dwarven Stamina – +5% stamina gain. Even more stamina!

Abyssal Strikes – +10% damage vs. demons. The most useful of the four final boons. Not that any of them are particularly useful.

Tyranny of Dragons

Dragon’s Claws– 400 power.

Dragon’s Gaze – 400 crit.

Dragonscale Defense – 400 defense.

Dragon’s Greed – 400 lifesteal.

Dragon’s Revival/Dragon’s Fury/Dragon’s Grip– +10% incoming healing/+5% critical severity/+10% control strength. I chose 1 point in each of these here, since they all can be useful. The bonuses decrease with each additional point, as well.

The Maze Engine

Abyssal Regeneration – 400 incoming healing bonus.

Demonic Resiliance – +5% control resist. Resist the force!

Demonic Swiftness – +3% action point gain. So many action points.

Engine Inspiration– Heaing spells have a chance to heal allies around you for up to 20000 hit points. This one is very good. It can heal allies outside of your area/targeted heals!

Elemental Evil

Wave of Force – 300 power, 2000 hit points. Take this.

Heart of Stone – +4% lifesteal severity, 2000 hit points. Way better than regen, but not really useful for a cleric.

Wall of Wind – Chance to heal up to 24,000 hit points over a few seconds when taking damage. When the effect ends, gain 1000 recovery for 10 seconds. More automatic healing! How aren’t clerics gods by now?

Storm King’s Thunder

Frosty Demeanor – 2% control resistance, 1000 hit points.

Hardy Constituion – 400 stamina gain, 2% everfrost resist.

Chill Determination – Gain up to 2000 recovery based on how much stamina you’re missing.

Glacial Strength – 3200 hit points and 2% everfrost resist.

Healing Warmth – Your healing spells have a chance to damage up to 5 foes around the target for 6000 damage. Probably the best of the ones available. But hey, free damage is free damage. ACs can’t be completely helpless when full-healing.

The Cloaked Ascendancy

Aura of Hope – When you kill something, chance to boost AP gain for allies within 25′ for 10 seconds. This is nice, when you manage to actually poke an enemy to death, anyway.

Fiery Frenzy– 2% critical severity, 1000 hit points.

Soothing Zephyr – 500 recovery, 2000 hit points.

Aberrant Power– When damaged, gain a stack of Aberrant Power. At 10 stacks, release a burst of 10000 damage. Aberrants take double damage. None of the boons here are that great, so it really doesn’t matter which one you pick.

Jungles of Chult

Tyrant’s Terror– 1000 power. (all 3 points here) There isn’t any other useful boon out of the 6.

Lingering Curse – Chance on hit to apply Lingering Curse, which lasts for 10 seconds. When a target with Lingering Curse is killed, its soul explodes to a random enemy within 20 feet, causing 30,000 damage and applying Lingering Curse. Probably the most useful of the four boon choices here.

The Lost City of Omu (Chult Extension)

Fight not Flight – 1000 deflect + 1600 hit points (all 3 points here). At this point you probably have so much defense that an extra 1000 from overgrown won’t make a dent, and deflect is a nice stat to have. This boon is actually really nice to choose.

Soul Syphon – Chance on hit to gain a stack of Soul Syphon. On killing a creature, you release all stacks in a burst all all nearby enemies. Each enemy receives 2000 damage per second lasting 1 second per stack of soul syphon. You restore 1% of your max health for every stack released, stacks up to 10 times. The 2nd most useful one here.

Ravenloft

Ageless – Gain 600/900/1200 recovery. Great way to stack up recovery!

Blood Lust – Each critical hit against an enemy has a chance to add a stack. At 10 stacks, gain 2,400 power for 10 seconds.

Or Righteous Sacrifice – When you take 10% of your HP or more in damage, grant party members 800 power for 5 seconds. This stacks up to 5 times.

DCs don’t typically take that much damage that quickly, but both can be good. It’s up to you which one you pick.

Acquisitions Incorporated

Confidence Boost – Gain 500/750/1000 power.

Taking a Break – Gain 3% Recovery.

Divine Oracle Boons

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Guild Stronghold

Power (can be swapped for armor penetration when soloing)

Defense – yarrr hardy har har. increases hardiness. ha ha.

Mount Speed Bonus – become speedy gonzales

Sharandar

Dark Fey Hunter – 400 power. Power is always good. Roar.

Fey Precision – 400 critical strike. This will help with your lack of crit that you probably have.

Elven Haste – +3% action point gain. Yes please!

Elven Tranquility – When hit, you have a chance to heal yourself for up to 20000 hit points. If you heal yourself automatically, you can focus more on buffing everyone else!

Elvish Fury – When you kill something, gain 135 power for 45 seconds. This can stack up to 30 times. This can be very nice as a DO, especially when you’re spamming chains on the floor.

Dread Ring

Reliquary Keeper’s Strength – 250 power and 250 movement. More power and more speedy gonzales!

Evoker’s Thirst – 400 lifesteal. A lot better than 400 regen, but still not particularly useful for this build.

Forbidden Piercing – +3% resistance ignored. This will help with the lack of armor penetration that you most definitely have.

Enraged Regrowth – Heal up to 20000 hit points over a few seconds when you’re slapped. When it’s over, gain 4000 defense. Yay, more defense, and more automatic healing!

Burning Guidance – Healing spells can burn enemies around the target for up to 2000 radiant damage. The most useful of the final boons. Free damage!

Icewind Dale

Encroaching Tactics– 400 combat advantage bonus.

Appreciation of Warmth – 400 incoming healing bonus.

Rapid Thaw – 400 recovery. You should have so much recovery by now that you don’t even know what to do with it.

Cool Resolve – Gain up to 2000 power based on how much stamina you’re missing. These feats sorta counteract with the ones that increase stamina regen, but they’re still nice.

Winter’s Bounty– +10% action points when killing a target. What’s not to love about more action points? Not that you’ll be killing much stuff.

Wall of Wind – Chance to heal up to 24,000 hit points over a few seconds when taking damage. When the effect ends, gain 1000 recovery for 10 seconds. More automatic healing! How aren’t clerics gods by now?

Storm King’s Thunder

Frosty Demeanor– 2% control resistance, 1000 hit points.

Hardy Constituion – 400 stamina gain, 2% everfrost resist.

Chill Determination– Gain up to 2000 recovery based on how much stamina you’re missing.

Glacial Strength – 3200 hit points and 2% everfrost resist.

Healing Warmth 2/3 – Your healing spells have a chance to damage up to 5 foes around the target for 6000 damage. Probably the best of the ones available.

Chill of Winter 1/3 – When attacking, chance to gain a stack of Chill of Winter. At 10 stacks, all stacks are consumed to release a burst, damaging all foes close to you for 10000 damage. More free damage!

The Cloaked Ascendancy

Aura of Hope – When you kill something, chance to boost AP gain for allies within 25′ for 10 seconds. This is nice, when you manage to actually poke an enemy to death, anyway.

Fiery Frenzy – 2% crit severity, 1000 hit points.

Soothing Zephyr – 500 recovery, 2000 hit points.

Aberrant Power – When damaged, gain a stack of Aberrant Power. At 10 stacks, release a burst of 10000 damage. Aberrants take double damage. None of the boons here are that great, so it really doesn’t matter which one you pick.

Jungles of Chult

Tyrant’s Terror – 1000 power. (all 3 points here) There isn’t any other useful boon out of the 6.

Lingering Curse –Chance on hit to apply Lingering Curse, which lasts for 10 seconds. When a target with Lingering Curse is killed, its soul explodes to a random enemy within 20 feet, causing 30,000 damage and applying Lingering Curse. Probably the most useful of the four boon choices here.

The Lost City of Omu (Chult Extension)

Fight not Flight– 1000 deflect + 1600 hit points (all 3 points here). At this point you probably have so much defense that an extra 1000 from overgrown won’t make a dent, and deflect is a nice stat to have. This boon is actually really nice to choose.

Soul Syphon – Chance on hit to gain a stack of Soul Syphon. On killing a creature, you release all stacks in a burst all all nearby enemies. Each enemy receives 2000 damage per second lasting 1 second per stack of soul syphon. You restore 1% of your max health for every stack released, stacks up to 10 times. The 2nd most useful one here.

Ravenloft

Ageless – Gain 600/900/1200 recovery. Great way to stack up recovery!

Blood Lust – Each critical hit against an enemy has a chance to add a stack. At 10 stacks, gain 2,400 power for 10 seconds.

Or Righteous Sacrifice – When you take 10% of your HP or more in damage, grant party members 800 power for 5 seconds. This stacks up to 5 times.

DCs don’t typically take that much damage that quickly, but both can be good. It’s up to you which one you pick.

Acquisitions Incorporated

Critically Acclaimed – Gain 500/750/1000 critical strike.

Severe Criticism – Gain 3% Critical severity.

Dungeon Strategy

(AKA Silver’s Guide to Success) – A work in progress

Okay, so now you have a nice build, and you’re always seeing people look for DCs to run FBI, mSVA, mSP, ToNG, CoDG…but you don’t know how! Or maybe you’ve done the dungeons on a different class, but don’t know how to effectively do them as a cleric. Hopefully these dungeon guides will give you a nice overview of what each dungeon is about, its important mechanics and how to react to them, and what powers are good to use in different situations.

This is a long page, so click one of the below links to go to its relevant section!

Fangbreaker Island (FBI)

Fangbreaker Island is unlocked via the Storm King’s Thunder campaign, and takes quite a bit of time investment to unlock.

Requirements:

11,000 total item level (10,000 in a private group)

At least 28% Everfrost Resistance (the more the better)

Great, so I’ll be able to complete this dungeon right after I meet the requirements, right?

Not likely, unless you are being carried by a high end group. As with all dungeons, the minimums are just that, minimums, and it’s recommended to be above them before attempting the content with an average group. A good rule of thumb to follow is to be at least 1,000-1,500 item level above the requirement. Make sure you’re using the everfrost resistance reinforcements for your shirt and pants, and make sure you have the Periapt of Everfrost Resistance. This should put you at 40% everfrost resistance. Using any of the rings from the protector seal vendor or everfrost potions can grant you even more.

Basics

This dungeon is snowy and cold, just like all of Icewind Dale, and it’s also very dangerous. The hardest part of the dungeon is the beginning, and this trips up a lot of groups and causes them to fail. Basically, you fight your way up the mountain, and run into a few groups of storm giants along the way. Flex your pinkies, because you’ll be doing a lot of dodging.

If you manage to reach the top, you’ll fight Hati, a really ugly Manticore. He is the first boss, and has a chance to drop Manticore profession materials, which sell for a decent amount of AD on the auction house (this is why you might see people looking for “hati farm” groups). After that, you’ll travel through some dark underground ice tunnels, and have to break through two ice walls. While the walls are melting, you must keep the trolls at bay. This part is pretty easy as long as you don’t get swarmed.

The second boss is just a hop, skip and a jump away, across some snow islands. Be careful not to let an empowered rune drop on your head! You’ll fight the mighty Dragon Turtle, whose slams increase his damage and defenses. This is another part where groups get stuck. If you manage to defeat him, you’ll sneak past a group of giants fighting in front of the door to Skull Fortress. Next, you’ll search for Storvald’s Ring of Winter in 10 different spots, which are all marked on your minimap.

Last but not least, you’ll fight Drufi, the Herald of Winter. Groups get stuck here a lot, too. She runs around a lot, making it hard for melee players to target her. She has a deadly attack that requires you to hide in order to survive.

Specifics

The Hill

Most groups do a lot of dying here. You have to be on your toes, and dodge every red zone you see, especially the circles, which are the rocks that the giants throw at you. Without proper defensive buffs, a group can be repeatedly one-shot by all of the giants’ attacks, making them unable to progress. Fortunately, this is the hardest part of the dungeon!

If you are the only cleric in the party, and your group isn’t high-end (14-15k+) you might want to slot some heals, such as Bastion of Health or Astral Shield if you think it’s necessary.

As the only cleric, you should be Anointed Champion, so try to keep up your Anointed Army daily as much as you can. Sigil of the Devoted can really help with this.

If you aren’t the only cleric, and/or you think your group can handle no Astral Shield, take either Forgemaster’s Flame or Break the Spirit (coordinate with the other cleric, if there isn’t one, use Break the Spirit) for a damage buff.

If you have two clerics in the group, and you’re DO, slot Prophecy of Doom and use it on the larger giants (the ones that throw the rocks, those ones are the most annoying). Also, take either Break the Spirit or Forgemaster’s, whichever one the AC cleric isn’t using.

Make sure your tank knows to take the giants one group at a time, and not to pull all of them together. It’s much easier to handle them in small groups than all at once.

Hati

Hati is a really ugly manticore with some really ugly poison attacks. At the beginning of the fight, Hati will use Terrifying Roar, which will cause an avalanche that does damage. Hide under the rocks closest to Hati to avoid getting knocked off the edge. Slap divine glow on everyone when you hear/see the ground violently shake to keep everyone at full health. Timing it right takes practice.

Stay on the opposite side as the tank, who will try to lure Hati towards the rocks where you were hiding previously if they have done FBI before. It’s easier to fight him if he has less room to flip and jump.

Avoid red zones, they can knock you back and off the edge if you aren’t careful, and can also put a nasty poison DoT (damage over time) on you or your party.

As time passes, Hati will jump up and smack down in a red circle, and there will be a couple more Terrifying Roars to watch out for. As his health decreases, he will jump up and land considerably more often.

Keep an eye on your allies’ debuff bars, and make sure they don’t have a poison DoT on them! If they do, try to cast spells on them, your Cleanse feat should take it away.

Both astral shield and bastion of health aren’t really needed here unless you are the only cleric and/or your group is not high-end – choose one to use as AC. As DO, keep using Prophecy of Doom, divine glow and either break the spirit or forgemaster’s flame. Keep up Hallowed Ground, and the AC will use Anointed Army.

The Dragon Turtle

Rule #1 – stay out from underneath him, this causes him to slam more often, which gives him a stacking damage and defense buff. He will rear back right before he slams.

Astral shield can be useful here, as the turtle has a snapping bite attack, and the damage scales based on how many slam stacks are on him. Your dps will likely be off to one side, so try to stand near them, unless you’re being really strategic and following the advanced placement guide below. DO should use the same powers as during Hati, and AC should be mostly similar too, depending on if Astral Shield and Bastion are needed or not.

There will be three interludes in the fight, where the dragon turtle will slink away, and you have to knock a rune into him to get him to come back. Don’t aimlessly hit the runes! Keep up any astral shield, divine glow, or other protections, as the runes can drop in unexpectedly from above and kill you. The dragon turtle retreats at about 20% health.

Check out this link for a couple general/advanced tips for beating this boss.

Unsummon your companion after beating this boss and heading to the giants. You won’t be attacking anything until the final boss, and companions like to engage random enemies, so it’s safer not to have it out (unless it’s an augment).

Drufi

Drufi moves around a lot, so she is a pain to fight as a melee class. There are a few types of red zones to know about in this fight that are important to survival.

Small circles – these show for a brief second below each member of your party, before spawning ice stalagmites that trap you. Dodge quickly! If you get stuck, you have about 10 seconds for someone to break the ice before you die. Being killed by the ice does not allow other players to resurrect you, and unless you have a soulforged enchantment, you’re dead. 🙂

Arrows pointing towards you – if you get this, get as close to all of your party members as possible, and the damage from the attack will be split between everyone close by.

Make sure you resummon your companion before entering the arena!

During Drufi’s Blizzards, run towards her. You can’t (and don’t need to) use any powers during this phase. Hiding behind any ice allows you to just stand still during this part.

This fight can be a long one, but stay focused on not getting caught in the ice!

Make sure the tank/party knows to keep Drufi away from the ice. She will break it if she attacks too close – and ice is essential to survival when she uses Winter’s Chorus. You’ll see a chat bubble on the left (“Winter’s Chorus will be your demise!”) and that’s when everyone has to hide behind the ice. Don’t use any attacks/healing spells until after her attack is finished, or you might accidentally break the ice and kill your party!

And that’s about it. I know a good many people whose first FBI run was more than 2 hours long, and some that ended in failure even after that length of time! It takes practice, coordination, and patience to complete.

Assault on Svardborg / Assault on Svardborg (Master) (N/MSVA)

Ahh, Svardborg! The “favorite” of people trying to get their relic weapons ranked up. Conceptually, SVA is very easy, it just requires a decent amount of buffs and defenses in order to complete quickly and effectively. (Note: As of mod 13 there will probably be less people doing this trial, since the relic weapons are no longer best-in-slot for DPS characters)

The only difference between NSVA and MSVA is deaths. If you die in the master version, you cannot re-enter the arena, but you can in the normal version.

As a DC, you’re going to want to encourage everyone to stay in a group, and place yourself right in the middle. This will allow you to make sure you’re catching everyone with your casts of AA, divine glow, etc.

Some groups prefer to “rearrange” the queue group before starting, and this is to put the highest DPS with the best buffers (us!). Terrifying Insight (DO feat) only affects members of your party, so you’d want to put that bonus damage where it matters, which is on the DPS people. In true endgame runs this doesn’t matter as much, but you will notice a difference in the average group if the parties are split poorly.

Mob phase:

Sticking together is important for this part, since attacks come from all sides. Cast AA (AC)/Hallowed Ground (DO) as often as possible, aim for a 100% uptime.

It’s important to pay attention here, especially if you’re aiming for the banner/achievement. If the group moves, you move with them. Try not to let anyone stray away/out of your buff range, or they might be one-shotted.

The only reason anyone should leave the group is if they have the splash redzone (circle) on them and they don’t want the rest of the group to get caught. However, the splash can kill that person, and if you’re keeping AA up nobody will be knocked down.

Astral Shield isn’t quite as useful in this phase, because most groups tend to run towards the groups of mobs (and out of your circle :().

Remember to hide behind a pillar after you’ve killed everything, or you’ll die. Losing a DC or a tank is more detrimental to the team than losing a DPS.

Storvald:

The almighty Jarl Storvald dude. I think he took growth steroids or something. Both tanks should stand together facing the stairs (after luring him towards the middle a bit), and everyone else should gather behind. Plop yourself right in the center of the group of DPS, and buff away.

When he uses the Winter’s Fury (“Witness the Ring of Winter’s power!”), make sure you have AA/HG up, since this attack can kill people without proper defenses. If your group isn’t high-end, one cleric can use Astral Shield during the boss phases.

If you trust your ability to stay alive, you can step on one of the runes and become “Runecharged.” This decreases the damage dealt by Winter’s Fury. Ranged DPS can also take these runes.

Stick together, even if you see the splash circle appear on your or someone close to you. Just keep AA up, and try to time divine glow to regenerate the health lost from these splashes.

If you’re AC:

Anointed Army daily, all the time.

Divine glow (as always)

You could use Exaltation here, but since there are usually 5-6 DPS, it’s much less effective. For maximum survivability, consider Bastion of Health or Healing Word.

If there is a Master of Flame wizard in your group, you could switch this out for a DPS power like Daunting Light, because MoFs have really strong debuffs and mobs reach the debuff cap faster.

Break the Spirit/Forgemaster’s.

Hroodangr/Skold:

Most groups will all rush one manticore first, which is the best way to do it. Stick near them, but keep yourself out of the line of fire. Getting knocked into the blizzard/knocked back in takes up an annoying amount of time (like 5 seconds before you can use powers again). A lot can happen in 5 seconds.

Keep AA up as much as you can. I feel like I say that a lot…

That’s really it. The blizzard phases are relatively short, it’s the Storvald phases that are most important.

There’s a lot of stuff that goes on in SVA, so don’t be discouraged if you lose track of what’s going on. It takes practice, and you will abandon your team (die) in at least a few runs. This trial is hard, so don’t be surprised if you fail multiple times.

Spellplague Caverns (Master) (MSP)

coming soon

Tomb of the Nine Gods (ToNG)

Mobs/General

The bosses are where most groups realize they have problems, but the mob phases can also be a good indicator. ToNG is basically repetitive motion for a cleric, and half the time I don’t even pay full attention when I run it anymore. When you’re first starting, though, you do need to pay a lot of attention. PSA: Don’t run this when you’re tired

As AC –

You will the the primary power-sharer of the group, so be ready to spam Anointed Army. Use the exaltation keybind on the DPS (most groups only have 1 dps and 4 supports)

If you’re running with a low level group (12-14k) you may want to use either astral shield or bastion of health instead of exaltation.

Most of the time the AC uses Forgemaster’s Flame, and divine glow of course.

Hastening light is very important 😀

As DO –

You will be the primary b/debuffer, so be ready to spam Hallowed Ground.

Most of the time the DO runs Break the Spirit and (you guessed it) divine glow.

You have a few options for the third power. If your group has plenty of debuffs (mainly if you have a control wizard MoF in the party) you can use Daunting Light for some extra DPS. Otherwise, it’s fine to stick with Prophecy of Doom. You can even switch between the two in mob/boss phases.

A third option is to use Warding Flare (rank 4). You right now: “what? nobody uses that.” Well, it’s AMAZING (don’t question it). I have made a few people believers since I discovered how good it is. Yes, this is intentionally vague. Let’s just say it makes you into some type of god if you can give it 100% uptime. :>

Orcus

For Orcus, you’ll basically be standing in one spot and occasionally dodging a red zone (assuming you don’t take a curse). Easy peasy, as long as the group has good buffs.

Usually, one cleric will take the middle curse (and sometimes relog to clear it, it’s pretty useless), and the other cleric will take the left curse. It’s more convenient for the DO to take the left curse, since all the running around is hard on the AC trying to keep up AA on everyone.

Keep your dailies up as close to 100% of the time as you can. Remember to use divine glow in divinity mode at least once when filling your meter.

Other than that, everything is the same as above.

Withers

For Withers, you’ll basically be attempting to stand in one spot, and failing epically at it. Huddle in close with your group, and once again keep dailies up as much as possible. It’s even more important in this boss, because Withers can do his paralysis skill (when the water rises) and cause persistent partial paralysis until the phase ends.

There are also the flamethrowers that give tons of small damage hits, which easily eradicates AA and makes the paralysis take hold.

This boss can be either very easy or very hard depending on your group. But if it makes you feel any better, in my hundreds of runs, this one has caused the fewest number of group disbands.

Defenses (and buffs of course) are more important here because of all the AoE (the whole fight is completely AoE). The Shepherd’s Devotion insignia bonus plays a big part here.

If your group is able to burn the boss fast enough, you likely won’t run into any problems at all with this boss.

Ras Nsi

Take a moment to mentally prepare yourself here.

Ready? Let’s go 😀

If the group didn’t fail at the first boss, and made it this far, there’s still a chance they won’t be able to complete the dungeon. It takes coordination, focus, and attention to detail. And many attempts to get used to it.

At the very beginning, and after each ghost phase, Ras Nsi will wind up like he’s swinging a baseball bat. This attack will give everyone partial paralysis, so make sure you have Anointed Army up before he uses it.

The attack with a very small safe zone around the boss will also give partial paralysis to anyone in the red.

When the souls pop up, move away from the boss to help the DPS burn the souls. Your tank should be fine for those 10 seconds, assuming he isn’t also helping with the souls.

When Ras Nsi moves to one of the edges, his red zones will apply a stack of broken armor. The more stacks of broken armor your team has, the more damage they’ll take, and it will get increasingly more difficult to protect them from being one-shotted. Do your best to stay out of the red zones yourself.

I find soulforged to be my favorite enchantment here, since dying clears your stacks of broken armor. So I know that even if I do get one-shotted, I’ll be resurrected and I’ll be fine.

If someone else dies, be careful that you don’t res them into a red zone or a hit that will instantly kill them. Also be careful that the ghost isn’t up, or both of you could be knocked off the side.

Just like the other bosses, make sure to keep your buffs and dailies up as close to 100% of the time as you can. There aren’t really any specific power changes you’ll need for AC or DO. It’s all about paying attention, knowing what to do, and surviving.

Overall, just try not to get discouraged. You will fail a lot of runs at first, and waste many hours in this dungeon, and that’s okay! Everyone has. Just remember this quote: “The expert has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.”

Cradle of the Death God (Cradle/CoDG)

coming soon

Castle Ravenloft (CR)

Sisters of Strahd Mechanics:

Arcolith Mechanics:

Strahd von Zarovich Mechanics:

+ will add general tips and more structured written explanations at some point, just putting these here for now though.

Introduction: The goal for this build is to maximize shareable power and recovery as much as possible. Running an AC and a DO is no longer considered “meta”, so it is more important than ever for an AC to share high amounts of power and be able to spam dailies like no one’s business. […]

healing is so pointless in end game, you can have enough healing from just using divine glow, if you run with a pally most go for some healing anyway and a good dps class knows how to keep them self alive. healing is only good for low level groups and weak players.

While I partially agree with that, the majority of newer clerics aren’t going to reach that stage for many months, if not years (this all depends on playtime of course). I have done many endgame runs that were successful and relatively brief that required a fair amount of healing. On the flip side I’ve done runs with the most endgame people (17k+) who barely required any healing at all. It depends on group composition as well as the skill and level of those in the group. In those kinds of groups I can go full buff and my lillend/divine glow is just fine. Thanks for your comment!

It isn’t a powershare-centered build, my AC is mainly healing. I haven’t experimented much with buffing as an AC cleric, and so that’s something I need to work on. I’ve actually never used blessing of battle, so thank you for the tip! I’ll update the guide soon, most likely.

you can actually just go DO for your healing loadout and loose less buffs while maintaining the same heals as your AC or go for a virtuous splash righteous AC heal loadout to gain the powershare, while maintaining a healing build. i actually feel like PvE AC is just fine as a righteous splash virtuous full buff DC though as soon as you have r10+ bondings, since you‘ll powershare with your pet and get huge power amounts, which results in great heals without speccing as a heal. DO healing is a bit different but can nevertheless be huge, since you can go high crit + dread enchantment to do a lot of critical healing.

“It isn’t a powershare-centered build, my AC is mainly healing. I haven’t experimented much with buffing as an AC cleric, and so that’s something I need to work on.”
imho, as AC is more power based then DO, all ACs MUST assume they are the primary source of powershare via WoL and feated BoB.

“I’ve actually never used blessing of battle”
AC.. an AC? AC not using BoB… k…
Yes. AC must use BoB. Very important buff. Please do not encourage new players to run AC without BoB.

Dear Sliver, I recommend you to redo your DO Feat to remove 5 points in WoL because you should know it doesn’t stack with WoL from another AC DC in the group run! And most end game contents, we run with at least 1 AC and 1DO DC. In the case of CoDG, some queue groups even run with 2 AC DCs and 1 DO DC. Hence, you wasted 5 point sin WoL for DO load out while those points could have put into different Feat to benefit your group members either for Heal, or for extra Temp HP or extra Damage Resistence, etc. ?

Next time you are in a level 70 public zone that is full or moderately filled, take some time and RESEARCH other players and inspect their loadouts/builds. On average, many players are just playing the game, using gear they find or loot and figuring it out as the go along. I’d estimate only 30%-40% of the player base are implementing the knowledge conveyed here and understand the dynamics of ‘meta’ and their class.

Add to that the current AD billionaires who seem to be out of touch with most players average bank rolls and the inflated value of AH items, it accurately reflects current societies values where generosity is incredibly rare and preferential selection a habit/general practice.

Great guide for newbie like me (i’m playing 14 days). All your choices are explained, and guide is very detailed. Thanks a lot <3 5/5 ★
May be someone can advice me an uptodate hunter-ranger guide with such high detalisation level?

it will be nice to have a screenshot of your Powers cause then you are new it preaty hard to find skill (especialy if you are not playing english version) or an icon near it’s name, but it is not nesseary. May be a little bit more about mechanics in party and solo game (skill sets/combos)

If you feel that you don’t need the extra hit points, then by all means, use it! However, if you’re just searching for good stats in an active bonus, I would suggest sellsword or something of the like for +300 power (purple). Sellsword is a fantastic summoned companion as well, as it has a great debuff attack once it is blue quality and higher, but it can be tough to gear properly. I’m guessing you got the zhentarim warlock from the winter festival, so I would definitely say use it until you get something better. Hope that helps!

The paragon feat path any DC player should focus on getting, regardless if they are a AC or DO, is Righteous. The buff and debuff that Righteous provides out weighs the healing from going Virtuous or Faithful.

AC build should be putting 10 points into Virtuous for Blessed of Battle feat and if you want to give the group a bit more AP gain from HoT powers you can also pick up Gift of Haste.

As for the DO, they can go full Righteous or put 15 points into Faithful for Gift of the Gods.

Both AC and DC builds should also be using Hastening Light personal to ensure all players get a lower cool down and more AP with the offhand enchantment.

As for the other personal: DO should always have Terrifying Insight slotted and the AC should be using Battle Frevor.

Both AC and DO can heal just fine as Righteous and the best part is both builds would be buffing the group and debuffing enemies.

I personally recommend the Terror or Plague Fire Enchantments for the weapon as they both at offer defense and damage reduction on enemies as you rank the enchantment up.

Best main artifact IMO is the Heart of the Black Dragon, but this requires a pretty high recovery. If you are not at 20K recovery than I recommend Sigil of the Devoted.

I’m going to guess you meant race…the only race of the 3 I suggested that doesn’t have a wisdom bonus is Sun elf, and in that case the bonus action point gain and recharge/cc resist outperforms the bonus from the 2 wisdom points. It’s up to you, though!

Hello! Sorry about the late reply. They should be fine as long as you aren’t using exaltation, since you’re missing the bonus length + healing. However, if your recovery is high enough, that might not even be a problem. Definitely looks good, though! I might put a couple points into gift of haste instead of chaplain’s strength/gift of the gods, I’ve had people ask me about it lately.
Thanks for reaching out!

First time cleric here, normally plays a tanking OP or a dps HR, so this type of character is completely foreign to me. Thank you so much for the guide. It was rec’d by a friend online. I just browsed over it and am really impressed with how detailed it is. I can’t wait to delve into it and see how effective I can make my cleric. It has been fun working out the toon on my own, even with me forgetting at times that I’m not a tank and rushing in to fight, lol, but I find I want to be more effective in groups and needed some guidance. Thank you for continuing to update and I will drop back once I’ve had a chance to respec my cleric and let you know how your advice helped.

Hi, and thank you so much for the kind words! It’s comments like yours that make me happy I took the time to write this guide. I glanced through it again, and it’s a bit more out of date than I thought, so this weekend I will be updating it with changes I’ve made and new things for module 13. Check back and make sure you’re still on the right track! I’m glad it has been helpful for you so far – make sure to let me know if you have any questions. 🙂

Hey Silver – thanks for replying. I am getting ready to take a look back at your guide to see if you updated. I haven’t been able to re-spec my cleric yet because my schedule has been crazy. I’ll definitely come back and give you an update when I do. Thanks for all the work you’ve put into this. By the way, I think it’s really amazing that you come back and interact with all of us!

Hey! I did update just the other day with module 13 changes, and have been doing periodic additions to the Dungeon Strategy tab since then (it’s not yet finished). Thank you for checking back and replying! I enjoy interacting with people and getting feedback, so I try to reply to all of my comments here. It gives me an idea of what I need to improve on, as well. Hope to hear from you soon 🙂

I love this guide! I needed help choosing specs for my DO loadout. You have done such an excellent job explaining every part of being a Devoted Cleric with just enough detail to make sense. Other guides leave me confused, but this one is so straight forward. I have only been playing for one month but I really want to keep a DC as my main. Thank you a million times.

Thank you so much for this well written guide! I’m quite new to this game and very new to playing a healing class and very much appreciate reading what is good to use and why I should actually be using it.

I don’t think so you pretty much covered the basics as well as in depth how to be AC/DC or dodc in a group which is great, I was confused on the divinity meter until reading your guide thanks I really appreciate it

Quick question. With my bondings going off im at 78k power 15k recovery. (On my ADC i went CHA INT for the bonus recharge speed.). However my recharge speed is 103% and Action point is 83% (with holy fervor it’s 103% Action points.) I only have 1 Sprite equipped to help with the Action points. Is that fine? Or do I still need to readjust my recovery more? Should I still go CHA WIS anyway? I want to eventually stop relying on Holy Fervor. Thanks in advance.

Hello! Your actual recovery stat number doesn’t matter as much as the performance you get in dungeons. Are you able to keep 100% uptime on Anointed Army/Hallowed Ground? If you are, and if it’s easy for you to do so, then you can consider putting points in WIS instead of INT.

Are the 103% recharge speed and 83/103% AP gain while you’re in combat, or idle? If that’s in combat, and if you want to stop using holy fervor (which is a good goal) then you’re going to need much more recovery to keep that 100% uptime. If that’s idle, then you might be fine to stop using holy fervor, though you may need to keep some INT points. I haven’t done much testing on that.

As for the rings, +5 ones are better because of the 2 offense slots. I would be using +5 goblin rings if I had them, but my luck is horrible…

Sorry for the late reply, I’ve been quite busy lately. I’m not sure what you’re referring to by “ap gain you get from crit after you reach 14000 recovery.” From my understanding, crit doesn’t contribute to ap gain at all, unless there is a feat I’m not thinking of at the moment. As for power, you can never have too much, especially as an AC cleric. Powersharing is one of an AC’s strongest points.

Hi, I really like your build. I play de dc as my main. I have a question about recharge speed and ap gain. My recharge speed is at 102% and my ap gaan is 104.4%. Just sanding in de sh. Recovery is at 16201 and ap 1189. If I get it right, that’s good? But I still have the possibility to add two ref kits to my rings. What should I go with. Stamina or regen?

Hi! Thank you for the comment. If you are able to keep your dailies up 100% (or almost 100%) of the time in combat, then your ap gain/recovery are fine. I always go with AP gain kits on my four jewel slots, but as a secondary option I would probably go with stamina since it’s the most useful of the other two options. 🙂

Thanks so much. I noticed now if I switch my power holy feaver to terrifying inside my ap drops to 85.1%. I play mostly as a do so that’s a nice buff for the group. So I’ll stick with ap on all of my juwels. ( is it useful to get ap kits on the jewels of your companion?) I just got my first ring from the primal set. Only 1 more to go and my set is complete ?. Then start working again on all my enchants, grade them up rank 12. I think I will switch some out for radiant in my offense slots. The are still all silvery. My crit chance is 52.2%. I have all azure enchants rank 11 in my comp. if I get everything to 12 would it be okay? Ore should I go with brutal instead? My power is 36.724. Crit 15.660 and recovery 18.253. As my companion fights a dummy. (I use a deva champion he is super. I bought the lillend epic. But my stats are better with the deva legendary as my summoned.)

AP kits don’t work on companions, because they don’t have that stat. The only ones that would work are regeneration kits, which are pretty useless in comparison. As a DO I prefer running both Holy Fervor and Terrifying Insight, Terrifying Insight is an important buff that you should use all the time! Switch out holy fervor for Hastening Light if the group needs it. Once you get full primal gear (if you don’t already have it) see how your recovery stands, and then switch to radiants when you can do so without sacrificing quick cooldowns. If you’ll ever delve into AC, you’ll want the highest base power possible on yourself. You could use cruel enchants (power + recovery) as well. Hope that helps 🙂

Hello Silver thanks for this great build, i’m new to this game but i really enjoy to play my dc (ac and do) on ps4 following your advices. At the moment my item level is almost 11000 but i really want to bring my dc performances as much high as i can. I want to ask you if I can contact you in future for some advices for TOGN. Just some questions; when i started to play this game i’ve get Wood elf race because i was playing Just for fun and i didn’t know the game, is that a problem? Better to reroll race? How can i get your beautiful black armor color (the one on the pg stats in “overview” part)? Thanks for now and sorry for my english.

Hello Mauself! Apologies for the late reply. Of course, you can ask me any questions you’d like. The easiest way to contact me would be through discord, my tag is Rachel#5859. Honestly, race doesn’t make that big of a difference, so you should be fine with Wood Elf. The “best” races are just marginally better and are only important if you’re interested in min/maxing your stats.
As for the dye, it’s one of the dye packs available in the tarmalune trade bar store with a regular purple dye added as the accent color. I’m not able to check which one it is right now, but I’ll edit this and let you know tonight. 🙂
Edit: It’s the Moon Shadow Dye Pack with a purple accent

Hello Celess! I’m going to guess you mean you’re confused between AC and DO. If you want to do damage, your best bet is to go for DO. DO is also best for newer players, as it’s easier to get into and gear/stats don’t matter as much compared to AC. I hope that helps!

Hi John! Glad you’re liking the guide so far. 🙂
If you don’t have Battle Fervor for blessings of battle, it isn’t nearly as beneficial to use. I 100% recommend taking that feat, even if you have to sacrifice some healing bonus in your build. However, it is a quick way to fill your divinity, and the bonus defenses *can* be helpful, though there are lots of other ways to increase your party’s damage resistance to the cap (80%). It’s up to you!
Battle Fervor gives 15% of your power to your party members (not completely sure if it gives the bonus to those outside the party, I’ll have to check). You target the enemy, the way it’s worded is really weird.

Oh haha I was asking because that feat is actually not part of your “AC Heals + Moderate Buffs” build xD

I actually switched to my second free loadout to try out DO instead, currently leveling and building up with the DO side of this guide

However I was also thinking that I might want to convert my AC build into the more buff-oriented one either way.

By the way I noticed the other commenter asking about adding you on Discord, that would also be an easier way of communication for me – promise I won’t pester you with too many noob questions if you add me ;D handle is DawnBlue#4502

Ah yes I don’t have that on my secondary AC loadout. The heal/mod buffs one is designed for newer clerics, when you asked your question I was thinking purely of group content & buffs for some reason. 😛
DO is really great for new clerics, it isn’t heavily stat/gear dependent like AC is (because of all the powershare buffs AC clerics have). You can also do some pretty good damage too.
Sure, I’ll add you 🙂

Hi! Yes, the companions I have listed are the ones I currently use for both loadouts. The method you mention is completely viable and recommended by some others. I don’t have two sets of companions simply due to how expensive it would be to buy and upgrade them all, and when I update my companions page I will be sure to mention this as another option 🙂 That being said, I have replaced my laughing skull with an air archon on the preview server (for both loadouts), and I plan to do the same on the live server whenever I can afford it.

Hi! I see some people using strength instead of charisma to “hit harder” and, as a newbie that cant get much crit chance anywhere, i kind of like that Idea. But i’m afraid of going for str instead of cha because of the companion stat bonus. 7-9% doesnt seem such a great loss comparing with 7-9% crit, but i’m like Jon Snow and know nothing. xD What do you think/suggest?

Hello! very sorry for not replying, I haven’t really had time to look at this lately. I will always stick with CHA due to the +% recharge speed (encounters) and +% action point gain, these are very important attributes for a buff cleric 🙂 However, retraining your character will let you repick these (except the ones you choose during the initial character creation), so if you wanted to choose STR at first and then use a retraining token to switch to CHA later, that could work. Hope this helps, though it may be too late now haha.

Thank you for your input, I was testing that the other day and realized that it can’t reach the max number of stacks. I will be switching to a con artist as my summoned companion soon, as soon as I can upgrade it to legendary 🙂

Hello, nice guide helped me a lot! 🙂
I got a problem though I wont get 1 stack on the divinity after an AS
its like 95% full drives me insane
i literally copied your feats did something get nerfed or am i just missing something?

Hi there, sorry for the late reply (since the mmominds update I am not receiving notifications about comments). If you put one more feat point into Bountiful fortune, it should reach 100%. Once I up my crit chance a bit more I plan on switching a couple weapon mastery feats over.

Gladiator’s Guile isn’t really the big offender here – Shepherd’s Devotion is much worse for giving insane movement speeds. 😛 However, I personally find it pretty easy to adjust and do the careful tap-tap so that I don’t fall. The key is to move slightly sideways instead of straight forward and back, gives you more room for error

Hello Silver,
Awesome guide, really nicely done.
Been a long time player and have a DC or 2 but been away from the game since Cloaked Ascendancy came out. I knew there were some changes but this helped put it all into perspective and helped me get a better understanding of what a DC is doing these days.

Also, how is HoLD doing?

I was a member for a good while and enjoyed running around with everyone.
I left HoLD when there was a big slump in the game and people had started moving on to other games, was sad seeing one or 2 people online at a time. Glad HoLD was revived.

HoLD is doing great now! We are always at full capacity, and oftentimes have 25-30 people online at once.Since you left, we’ve swapped alliances and had two leadership changes, and now we’re better than we’ve ever been.Perhaps you could rejoin us when we open up a couple spots? 😉

Hey Silver,
You are welcome!
When I left HoLD I was picked up by Outcasts of Neverwinter (OON) and was with them for a long while and was a pretty involved member. Real life happened and I stopped playing for a good while, but when I came back recently the GL hit me up pretty fast and asked me to rejoin, been a lot of fun running around again and playing a DC that can actually do damage and support the group with buffs, debuffs, heals and damage is loads of fun to play now. I still got some stuff to do and working on my missing boons, but OON and the alliance work pretty well together and there is always something going on.
I am pretty happy with my membership in OON but I would love to group up sometime and maybe run some stuff just for fun,.

Hi Silver! thank you very much for taking the time to make this guide. Usually, in most guides the narrators assume that the viewers know the basics and are for more progressed players. Being a very new player (10 days old) I am mostly confused… lol. Fingers still fumbling, you know how it is… I am very, VERY grateful for your detailed explanation and will be referring to it as I progress. Again, thank you very much and plz keep up the great work!

I love the build. I have been looking for a good cleric build. Everything is easy to understand. You explained it very well. This is the best one i have seen. I hope you keep updating the builds. Thanks for sharing !

Thank you for this! Really helped me get my fresh lvl 70 in a good place to grow! Also, not struggling so much. Thank you again, and fuck the naysayers. Those kind of people took the fun out of Pokémon anyway. This game is for all levels, and all players and all types. Let us have some fun, I need this game to take a break from dark souls and chill out.
By the way, love the way you payed this out! I refer to it often and understand my loadouts better

Hey silver i love your guide first and foremostt but im running into some issues with my ac with survivalbility not tha i cant stay alive well enough but that the powers seem too not be doing enough damge to kill the enemies quick enough before a group of batiri kill me how i can tweak things enough to keep alive but also have the sufficient power to kill them quickly what powers would you suggest and best enchants to run in offense slots azures or silverys i just made the ac 4 days ago so im off to a rough start but have hope to be better soon my stats out of battle are 16k power 11k crit 9400 arm pen and 9k recovery

Hey there Michael, AC is primarily for groups and dungeon content, I would recommend having a divine oracle loadout for soloing things/dps. However, it is possible to do that with AC if you really want to. You can use my build in the “DO Feats/DO Powers” sections, but if you really want to continue with AC when soloing, here is some advice – for class features, choose Anointed Action and Holy Fervor (anointed action gives bonus damage after a daily, and holy fervor grants you more action points when attacking stuff). Try daunting light, chains of blazing light, and divine glow for encounters, and then lance of faith/astral seal for at-wills. Flame Strike and Hallowed Ground are great dailies, though you can swap out HG for divine armor or anointed army if you’re having trouble staying alive. As far as enchantments, for groups you’ll always want radiants in your offenses, but if you just want to solo stuff, some brutals, cruels or black ice would work pretty well. Hope this helps, and good luck building your DC 🙂

There was a bug where the Brightsilver set was showing higher stats/item level at green than it should, I believe that has been fixed now. Brightsilver is the masterwork II weapon set (older), feathered is the masterwork III set, which is newer and has higher stats

Coming from not having played neverwinter I searched around looking for a some what comprehensive guide with everything from items to mechanics. This was the only guide I could find that actually explained things properly.

Beautifully made guide silver absolutely great. I’ve not copied your guide completely dut currently working on my DO. I’m still squishy around 9.993 IL. Which sound low but I’ve been playing two weeks now. (got lucky joined on x2 exp marauders)

Hey Silver!
Question on the best artifacts. Currently I’m running Sigil of Devoted, Artifact of Air/Fire, and Heart of the Black Dragon. Do you think HotBD is worth it/notable? All of the stats are pretty good (recovery, armor pen, action point gain) and I’m not sure if I’d like to trade it out. Also, is the dead set for neck and waist + thayan book of the dead worth getting? I don’t find the artifact to be super helpful, but I’d like a second opinion on what the ideal set before the MW set is. Thanks!

Hey Silver! Two questions. Is Heart of the Black Dragon worth upgrading? It gives Recovery, armor pen and action point gain, two of which being rather important for DC’s. What’s your opinion on it? I’m running sigil of the devoted, symbol of fire/air, and HotBD. Second question is whether or not the dead set for neck and waist is actually worth investing into. You mention it along with the skull lord set, but which is actually better? Also, would it be worth to trade HotBD for thayan book to complete the set? I already have the neck and waist for dead set. Thanks!

It was such a joy to read your guide. I’m not a super new player (been playing since last week of m12b). But I’m looking at rolling OP and DC as secondary mains. I just love the tone and structure of your guide. It’s the first guide I’ve seen that doesn’t assume you have access to all the bis end game stuff and actually shows which tiers of things to get along the way Please keep up the good work. I would give you 100 <3s if I could.

Well make a divine oracle to level up to 70 basically following the DO guide here – when you hit 70 make an AC loadout for dungeons again following pretty close to what is outlined here – AC is all about power/ap gain/and annointed army to share that power (along with a few other things)

Because ap gain is everything for a cleric the bonus ap gain on a sun elf makes them the go to (without paying for dragon classes) everything else is kind of irrelevant unless there is a plus to wisdom or charisma (but even still the ap gain will be more beneficial for a longer period)

Now that DO are DPS-oriented, I’m a little torn between choosing Rampaging Madness and Burning Guidance for the last tier of the Dread Ring boon. Would it be wise to choose Rampaging Madness over Burning Guidance since we’re not really much of a healer? Thanks.

I’m sorry but this is one of the worst builds I have seen. Guides like this is why alot of new players come into this game and get kicked from parties. You have 0 clues on how to test or even play a dc. Race dont matter????? Are you actually for real? Race matters ALOT. Did you know dragonborn 3% extra power is also buffed power? So basically you’re saying an extra 40-60k powershare is useless. Honestly, do some research before you make a build. You basically messed up every player who followed this guide. Not everyone has AD to burn on useless items.

Hey, I just started Neverwinter and just hit 70. And I tried using that keybind you listed in the AC powers page and it doesn’t seem to work. Most of the time the person I’m trying to use it on won’t stop moving long enough for me to highlight them. And the even if they do stay still it says I have to target someone and if I click the keybind it says it doesn’t recognize the hardtargetlock command. Is there some specific way I need to target someone in order to get the keybind to work properly or is it just no longer viable?

I still use it, so it does work. The person doesn’t need to stand still for you to use it. Make sure you’re typing in their name correctly (keeping the quotes, and without their @handle) and press CTRL (or whatever key you chose to bind it to). Hope that helps!